Asset Tracking

Sure to become one of the age-old battles, choosing between Barcodes or RFID for your tracking needs is no easy task. Both technologies can be used to track almost anything from inventory in a warehouse and company assets to hospital patients but depending on the specifics of your application one may be more effective than the other. Likewise, there is a noticeable cost difference between the two but given the time and labor the technology can save you the return on your investment may be well worth it.

This handy infographic is a great starting point to learn the key differences between Barcodes and RFID to get you closer to a decision. We understand this isn’t always a cut and dry choice so feel free to contact one of our Data Capture specialists for assistance.

Honeywell has announced the first in a series of next-generation mobile workforce solutions, the Dolphin 75e, that gives enterprises the flexibility to choose either Windows Embedded 8.1 or Android 4.4 KitKat operating systems. The highly versatile Dolphin 75e is a multimodal mobile device that offers enterprises a low total cost of ownership and significant operational gains with minimal training time for mobile workers, to help business adapt to their current and future requirements. The Dolphin 75e addresses the needs of enterprises with a variety of workflows, including inventory and asset management, shelf stocking, customer engagement, check-in and reservations, and quality and auditing by allowing mobile workers to toggle between multiple applications from a single device.

The Dolphin 75e offers a superior user experience with a field-proven sleek, pocket-sized design and easy-to-use interface that encourages fast and easy adoption with minimal training resources. Equipped with state-of-the-art battery technology and a durable IP67-rated design, the Dolphin 75e powers through a full shift and beyond. The 75e is powered by the leading-edge Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, a 2.26 GHz quad-core processor with 2GB RAM, 16 GB FLASH, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and capacitive touch with universal glove usage capabilities. The device offers the freedom to use a variety of input and output modes, and is perfectly suited for operations that need to deploy multiple applications with ease to increase productivity.

Plant Access is a specialized logistics services provider, catering for the green life industry. Plant Access provides a highly efficient service utilizing a unique, innovative steel stillage design used to pick, crossdock and deliver nursery plants to Bunnings Warehouse locations across Victoria and South Australia.

Weeding out manual processes

Plant Access manages the orders and provides the steel stillages that are used to transport plant products from over 67 nursery supplier sites to Bunnings stores across Victoria and South Australia. Shipments from different suppliers are consolidated at the Plant Access cross dock facility before orders are transported to Bunnings locations and plants are sold to consumers direct out of the steel stillages.

At any one time, Plant Access has thousands of re-usable steel stillages spread across hundreds of sites throughout the supply chain. Knowing the location of all these stillages and the status of an order was a serious challenge for Plant Access under a legacy paper-based manual ordering system.

A new automated tracking system was necessary to capture real-time data from nursery supplier sites, the Plant Access cross dock logistics facility and the Bunnings stores, in order for Plant Access to have an accurate and instant visibility of their stillage assets and the products they were transporting.

Building a flourishing future with RFID

“Plant Access commissioned us to design and pilot an automated system to track the tailor-made steel stillages, which would allow real time visibility of customer orders across the supply chain,” said Geoffrey Ramadan, Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (UMD). “Following successful testing of Honeywell Scanning & Mobility RFID technology, Plant Access decided to roll out a pilot automated track and trace system supported by our cloud network enabling real time information to be accessible from multiple locations.”

Honeywell IT75 ruggedised metal-mount UHF RFID tags are now attached to the specially designed stillages so when scanned and processed at key intervals in the supply chain they feed real time track and trace information to the Plant Access cloud. The pilot system allows supplier nurseries to pull down orders from the Plant Access cloud for data capture by workers on RFID enabled Honeywell CN70 rugged mobile terminals. The handheld computers are used in the nursery to pick and pack orders, scan the RFID tags on packed stillages and finally register the order as packed on the cloud so Plant Access is notified that the order is ready for pick-up and transportation.

DC Console, AML’s free program generation software used to write DC Suite applications for the LDX10 handheld computer, now comes with a host of new enhancements that put it on a level with expensive third-party software packages that cost thousands of dollars. Only with AML can you get the LDX10 handheld computer, pre-written and pre-loaded applications contained in DC Suite, and a FREE program generator in DC Console.

With DC Console 2.0, users can take advantage of the following NEW features:

All products Barcode Discount sells are new (not used). Most products ship via our low cost flat rate shipping the same day your order is placed and can ship overnight to anywhere in the US. Our prices are amongst the best available anywhere. Buy online or call 1-800-485-3730 for a free review of your product needs by one of our knowledgeable product experts.